


Departure

by Eggling



Series: daemon au [6]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Gen, daemon AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 15:48:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18944068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eggling/pseuds/Eggling
Summary: Victoria makes a difficult decision.





	Departure

“Are ye not tired?”

Victoria was sitting half in shadow, perched on the rim of a raised garden bed. She did not look up at the sound of Jamie’s voice, instead remaining engrossed in fiddling with the edge of an overhanging fern. A pair of shining eyes behind her were the only evidence of Iolanthe’s presence. “No,” she said at last. “No, I’m fine. I’m not tired at all.” The dull exhaustion in her voice and on her face made her words seem meaningless, but Jamie did not press the issue, instead trying to muster up a cheerful smile.

“Do ye know what the Doctor’s gone and done?” he asked.

“No.”

Her lack of interest made him falter for a moment, but he carried on regardless. “He’s only gone down to the beach for a swim. They get worse, him and Siannu. They’re splashing around like a couple of children.” To his dismay, Victoria did not even show a hint of a smile. He sat down beside her, reaching out a hand in comfort, but she shrugged his touch away. Exchanging a look with him. Teárlag sprung up onto his knee and stretched out her neck towards Iolanthe. He simply vanished further into the darkness of the garden bed, leaving Teárlag to curl back towards Jamie. “You’re still no’ sure, are ye?”

“Yes.” At last, Victoria looked up at him. Her eyes were brimming with tears, and Jamie fought back the impulse to reach out to her again. He knew that she would not have appreciated it – and that he could not keep her with them just by holding onto her. “But that doesn’t make it any easier, leaving you and the Doctor.”

Even though he had already known what her decision would be, to hear her say aloud that she was leaving them hit Jamie like a physical blow. _Then don’t_ , he wanted to cry out. _You belong with us, in the TARDIS_. Arguing with her would not help either, he told himself. She was upset enough as it was. Stroking along Teárlag’s spine, he smoothed her ruffled fur, hiding their distress. “Aye,” he said at last. “We’ve been together for a long time now.” _Not long enough_. “Has the Doctor said anything to ye?”

Victoria let out a short bark of laughter, more full of tears than humour. “No. No, you know what he’s like, he wouldn’t.” She shook her head. “He believes in people making up their own minds.”

Jamie had suspected as much, but he still found himself wishing that the Doctor had stepped in. Victoria was right, he thought bitterly. The Doctor believed that whatever Victoria chose would be good for her – even if it meant leaving her out of her time, living with complete strangers. His nonchalance about the whole business almost seemed as if he had done this before. But then again, he thought, was that not how she had come to stay with them, in the TARDIS? Taken in by two people she barely knew, away from her home? “Oh, Victoria,” he murmured. “Do ye think you’ll be happy here?”

“Oh, I think so,” Victoria said, her voice full of a cheer he knew was forced. “The Harrises are very nice people.”

“Yes, I know that,” Jamie pressed on. “But they’re not from your time, are they?”

Victoria shrugged. “I wouldn’t be at ease back in Victorian times. I had no parents or family left there anyway.”

“Aye, that’s true.” Jamie sighed, his shoulders slumping. He made as if to stand up, but all the strength seemed to have left his limbs, and he remained where he was. “Oh, well.”

“Jamie?” Victoria’s voice was small, almost embarrassed.

“Yes?”

“You wouldn’t go without saying goodbye, would you?”

Jamie scoffed. “Of course not.” _Did she really believe he and the Doctor cared for her so little that they would leave without a word?_ At last he managed to stand, and began to walk away from Victoria. “That won’t be till the morning, anyway.”

Victoria stood up as he did, tapping her fingers together anxiously. “You do understand, don’t you?” she said anxiously. “Why I want to stay.”

Her words made Jamie pause. He stood still for a long moment, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to scrounge up an answer, but eventually he settled for honesty. “No.”

“Iolanthe settled.” The words fell out of Victoria’s mouth in a tumble of nervousness and relief. “Before, when I decided to stay.”

“Oh.” She seemed so impossibly small and frightened, a twitching fawn alone and lost in the dark. To hear that Iolanthe had settled had been the last thing Jamie expected. She was a touch young for it, not yet fifteen. But her eyes were heavy with a deep, bone-weary sadness, and Jamie knew that she had been forced into growing up much too early. He had seen the look before, on boys too young to be scarred by war. “What did he settle as?”

Victoria turned, reaching into the garden bed behind her and pulling out a large, silken-furred cat. His creamy coat seemed almost luminous in the moonlight, offset by his darkened limbs and face. Looking into Iolanthe’s eyes, Jamie was struck by a feeling he had not experienced since Teárlag had settled, the overwhelming sense that he should never have expected Iolanthe to settle as anything else. “He’s hardly the lion you thought he’d be,” Victoria was saying, her voice trembling. “He’s not – we’re not who you thought we were.”

They stood facing each other for a long moment, each holding their cat-daemons clutched in their arms. Jamie glanced between Iolanthe and Teárlag, studying them both – one neat and delicate, the other scruffy and broad-shouldered. He had met many cat-daemons, but none of them had given him such a strong sense of staring into a mirror as Iolanthe did in that moment.

Teárlag squirmed out of his arms, breaking him out of his thoughts. She stretched up towards Iolanthe again, and this time he leapt down to meet her, letting her sniff him over carefully. “It’s a good form,” she said at last. “Suits ye.”

“I never really thought you’d be a lion,” Jamie said, putting his hands on Victoria’s shoulders. He glanced back down at Iolanthe, looking over him a little more closely. The sense of reflection which had held him spellbound had faded, and Iolanthe had become just another cat-daemon, a world apart from Teárlag. “It’s a good form,” he said, echoing Teárlag. “An’ you’re still some of the bravest people I know, ye and him. Ye dinnae need him to be a lion for that.”

“I don’t think so,” Victoria said quietly as Jamie drew her into a hug. “I don’t feel very brave now.”

“Ye might not see it, but ye are.” Jamie pulled away, looking her up and down as if expecting to see some change, some physical marker of the settling. When he found her the same as she had always been, he was hit by another pang of grief at the prospect of leaving her behind. “I’ll see ye in the morning.”

She nodded, biting her lip, and he knew that she too was holding back tears. “Goodnight, Jamie.”

“Goodnight, Victoria.”

He kissed her forehead and turned away, leaving her standing alone in the garden.


End file.
